Beverages, such as beer, brewed and/or draught dispensed at home have a number of qualities desired by consumers—for example, cost in comparison with commercially brewed and/or bottled product, freshness, natural carbonation, the ability to customise flavours, avoiding need for pasteurisation, and reducing waste produced by disposable containers.
Generally, home-brewing of beer adapts large-scale brewing techniques to less sophisticated equipment—requiring considerable manual effort and care with regard to sanitisation and preparation of equipment and ingredients, and the brewing and storage processes themselves.
While numerous devices have been developed in an attempt to simplify these processes and make them easier and more consistently manageable for the general public, there remains room for improvement.
The storage and dispensing of draught carbonated beverages in smaller quantities is also an area for development.
It is an object of the present invention to address the foregoing problems or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.
All references, including any patents or patent applications cited in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference. No admission is made that any reference constitutes prior art. The discussion of the references states what their authors assert, and the applicants reserve the right to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of the cited documents. It will be clearly understood that, although a number of prior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that any of these documents form part of the common general knowledge in the art, in New Zealand or in any other country.
Throughout this specification, the word “comprise”, or variations thereof such as “comprises” or “comprising”, will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated element, integer or step, or group of elements integers or steps, but not the exclusion of any other element, integer or step, or group of elements, integers or steps.
Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.